Featured App

DigiCal Calendar & Widgets

Today's roundup is presented by DigiCal Calendar & Widgets from Digibites. DigiCal is a complete calendar solution that integrates with Google Calendar, matching it feature-for-feature and then some. A wide selection of calendar views (agenda, day, week, month, text month, list) and great tablet compatibility means that your calendar will look great and be easy to use no matter what device you're using. DigiCal also includes a variety of widgets, all of which put the stock Google Calendar to shame, and integrated location search within the app. DigiCal even checks Google Now for travel and traffic time, letting you know when you'll need to leave to avoid being late. The standard DigiCal is free, but the $4.95 DigiCal+ includes a month widget, extra visual options, and zero ads.

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Experience the most stylish Android calendar with Holo light and dark themes with 6 powerful calendar views and 5 beautifully designed widgets! DigiCal is a stylish and easy to use calendar application that syncs all your appointment with Google Calendar. You can choose from 6 powerful calendar views (day, week, agenda, month, text month and list) in both portrait and landscape mode. DigiCal also comes with 5 beautiful widgets (list, grid, day, day list and month). Following the latest Android Holo light and dark theme, DigiCal is bringing the clean and intuitive user interface experience to smartphones and tablets running Android 2.2+. DigiCal’s innovative features such as the smart action bar make it easy to edit, move, copy, paste and delete events. With our unique built-in location search, adding a location to your event has never been easier. All you need to do is type in the name of the place (cafe, store, and park) and DigiCal will automatically look up the address and save it. With this feature, Google Now (Android 4.1+) knows where you'll need to go. It'll watch current traffic, plan your route and notify you when you should leave.

Apps

Google Keyboard

It's about bloody time. Like some of its other apps, Google has released the official Android keyboard into the Play Store, allowing users on skinned devices access to one of the best software keyboards around. You don't need any particular version of Android or even root to use it: just download the app and get going (if you're in a primarily English-speaking country, anyway).

Floating Notifications (Trial)

Floating Notifications popped up as a more versatile, flexible version of Facebook's Chat Heads: your notifications will be displayed in a little floating circle, which you can scroll through even in fullscreen apps. Floating Notifications includes a pretty amazing amount of customization, letting you choose which apps appear and how they behave. The main app is a 30-day trial - here's the $2 unlock app.

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Floating Notifications is a new and intuitive way to view your notifications. It can take a notification from any app and present it to you as a floating icon, similar to Facebook chat heads, but for any application. It even works in fullscreen mode (in Games, Youtube etc) and is fully customizable. This is a full 30 day trial to give you plenty of time to get to grips with everything Floating Notifications has to offer :)

CPU-Z

CPU-Z has long been a favorite among desktop users, and now you can bring the digital pissing contest performance meter with you anywhere. In addition to the basic speed metrics, CPU-Z will give you detailed information about your phone's hardware, battery, screen, and all the other bells and whistles. The app is free, though technically it's still in beta.

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Android version of the popular CPU identification tool for PC/Windows., CPU-Z is a free application that reports information about your device.

CPU Spy Reborn

CPU Spy is your basic performance clock for hardware enthusiasts, though it does include at least one relatively novel feature: tracking each processor core independently. Want to dig a little deeper? The open-source project is available on GitHub as well.

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This app is based on the famous CPU spy, is open source and still in development. If you have any requests, questions or problems don t hesitate to send an email. You can follow the project on Github https://github.com/Mirkoddd/CPUSpyReborn. Commits, help with translating and advices are welcome.

GMD Hide Soft Keys ★ root

Looking for a way to get rid of your soft navigation bar, perhaps so you can give PIE controls a try? Most people would recommend a custom ROM, but if you're using a Nexus device, you don't even need that. Noted developer Good Mood Droid has released an initial version of Hide Soft Keys, which does what it says on the box... or at least it would, if Google Play Store downloads came with boxes. Only Nexus devices and the Sony Xperia Z are eligible at the moment.

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This application allows to hide navigation bar and auto show/hide it with simple swipe from bottom. It hides only navigation bar (soft keys) in Phone UI and does not hide notification bar.

Plane Finder 3D

The system that keeps airports ticking in time (sometimes) is available to the public, and never has it been implemented better than in Plane Finder 3D. The app uses the ADS-B network to track planes in real time, allowing you to find planes overhead and figure out where they're going. It's also got some nifty augmented reality, and you can even go into a simulated cockpit for each plane.

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Plane Finder 3D shows live air traffic over detailed terrain - all in glorious 3D. Using touch to pan and zoom, you can fly your own way around the skies. Look up, down, head on, move around - however you like – the choice is yours. Or why not jump on board a plane using 3D Fly Me to see the surrounding live air traffic against beautiful skies and ground terrain. All of this is happening in real time.

Quick Social

There's not much to this app: it just lets you post to the Big Three social networks from a notification. It's nice if you don't like to clutter up your homescreen with scrollable Twitter or Facebook widgets. Quick Social even includes a quick triple-post feature that posts to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ - something I don't think I've ever seen before, on Android or anywhere else.

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Quick Social is an app that allows you to tweet/post to Facebook/post to Google+ right from the notification drawer. Enable any or every social network, login and... you're done. It's that simple.

BBC Weather

There are more than a few weather apps vying for your digital dollar, but if you reside in the UK, who better than The Beeb to get your information from? The official BBC Weather app includes hourly forecasts for UK locations, and 3 hour forecasts for everywhere else (assuming that you can download the app at all at your location). Check out that sweet swipe-out menu in the screenshots.

AutoLocation

AutoLocation uses Tasker's power in combination with the new location and activity APIs Google introduced at I/O. While some basic location functionality existed in the app before, now you get access to geo fences and an activity monitor, which can distinguish between walking, driving, and cycling. It's just another set of tools in the already massive set available through Tasker. Naturally, you'll need the full Tasker app to take advantage of it.

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Control your device with your movement. React to Geofences and Activities in Tasker. AutoLocation is a Tasker plugin that lets you know when you're walking, in a vehicle, cycling, standing still or tilting the device, or when you're in a certain geographical area or spot and react to that information any way you like. Geofencing is a new powerful location algorithm provided by Google that lets you track your location with higher accuracy and lower power consumption than ever before.

Basis Fitness & Sleep Tracker

You know Basis as the company that desperately wants to be Nike. And just like Nike, they've got a fitness training watch. But unlike Nike, they've seen fit to release a companion app into the Google Play Store. I don't want to tell you how to spend your money... but if you're an Android user, Nike doesn't want it, and Basis does.

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Boost your fitness and sleep with Basis. Purchase a device at mybasis.com and use the free companion app to sync wirelessly, track heart rate, calories, steps and more. Get the most out of your Android phone with a Basis band. The Basis band (get one at mybasis.com) has the most advanced sensors on the market, continuously capturing heart rate patterns, motion, perspiration and skin temperature throughout the day and night. It's the perfect companion to your Android phone.

Noom Walk Pedometer

How advanced can a pedometer be? Surprisingly so, at least if you're using Noom. It combines the basic functions of a standard pedometer with a little social magic to keep you and your "friends" motivated. The app claims that it will use less than 2% of your phone's battery while in operation - I'll leave the testing up to you.

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Noom Walk is the best pedometer available for the Android platform. It automatically runs throughout the day, counting your steps and letting you know when you've reached daily step count records. You'll be notified when new friends join, and you can always visit their profiles to encourage them with high fives and comments.

Vodio

"Personal video curator" sounds so buzzy that I wouldn't blame you if you closed this tab right now. But Vodio has a few things in its favor, despite the name: Pandora-style personal video recommendations, search-based channels, and an interface that manages to combine a few interesting visual tweaks with Holo without totally mucking it up. It's also got the standard social sharing features.

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Vodio is your personal video curator keeping you up-to-date with everything you're interested in by matching your personal taste and preferences. With a slick and intuitive interface, Vodio combines all of your favorite video sources into a simple, fun and easy-to-use system so you can discover, watch and share the best videos from all over the web. It’s like having your own personal video manager on your Android device.

MPme Radio

There are a lot of options on Android for tuning into live radio, but MPme might just be the first that lets you zero in on a station based on the artists that are playing at the moment. The app doesn't look half bad either, and it includes streams from terrestrial radio stations all over the planet. Remember to watch that data consumption if you're on a metered plan.

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MPme Radio matches you to your perfect radio station. Let the music you love find you. Find all of your favourites stations, search by genre or hand over to MPme’s live radio recommendations to see when your favourite artists are on air. Never have to make a play list again. MPme offers music lovers an elegant aggregation of professionally curated radio from around the world, direct to your Android device. Discovering music that you love is made effortless.

McAfee Security Innovations

There's a good idea behind this app: tether your smartphone and tablet together, and an alarm will sound if one is lost or stolen. It's too bad that compatibility is strangely limited, and you'll have to keep both connected to the same WiFi network for the app to work properly. That "30 foot" tether is based on WiFi coverage, so it may be quite a bit longer in reality. The app also includes a malicious QR link scanner and an encrypted data vault.

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Get early access to cool new security and productivity tools in beta from McAfee. McAfee® Mobile Innovations provides you with an opportunity to try out groundbreaking new features and to give us feedback on how to improve them or ditch them altogether. The list of features will grow and evolve over time based on your feedback.

reClock: Text Clock Widget

Here's a clock widget that is intentionally hard to read, for masochistic timekeepers everywhere.

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reClock is the text clock home screen widget that you actually have to read. Attention is in high remand and short supply: quite often we find ourselves missing something or having to double-check. reClock displays the current time in reference to a recent or upcoming time. The result is that you actually have to read and process the text to know what time it is. Notice: reClock is still in its early stages of development, so bugs are possible. Please let us know by sending an email to [email protected] with a description of the issue (screenshots are nice too.).

Lol and the 8.1 start button will simply take you to the start screen.

Jachym Kokesh Lukes

Sneaky Micro$oft :)

Cherokee4Life

I love you guys!

mesmorino

I actually want to try Digical but I'm sick and tired of third party apps breaking sync with my google account. The moment I try a new contacts app, or a new calendar, or even a new browser, I get that stupid message about sync experiencing problems.

Jachym Kokesh Lukes

That is really strange, sync shouldn't be affected by different calendars, as they all use Google Calendar Sync service.

Roy Blumenthal

I just bought the full version of DigiCal, and it's working perfectly right out of the box.

Didn't even have to tell it which calendars to sync. It used the settings from my previous calendar setup. All events are listed.

I'm very happy with it. Wish I'd bought this app a while ago.

One of the best things about it is the copy and paste ability. Something that's been missing from Gcal for a long time.

Digical sure looks nice, but until they're able to handle g-tasks they're not a real calendar. Them's the breaks.

mechapathy

Is anyone else getting the mobile theme on desktop with this article? FWIW it only happens with this article. Win 8 Pro 64, Chrome 28 beta channel.

Abhi Kurve

I absolutely love it when Apps starts abiding by the new design principles.
Example is the MPme Radio App using the Hamburger Navigation drawer.

SymonDT

For all Android users the more Widgets the more quicker your battery will discharge. So better stay away from these fancy apps if you want your battery and data plan to be unharmed for longer period of time

Everypost allows posting to multiple social networks at once. It's free, but doesn't have the notification shade feature.

Abhishek Sisodia

You should include Clubzone Android app next time, great app for finding nightclubs, events and parties in your city.

Matthew Fry

The WTF clock could be *very helpful* for Android devices used for education. Kids these days seem not to know anything other than reading digitally displayed numbers.

unni123456

AutoLocation is not free by the way....

CaptPolymath

Noom Walk Pedometer absolutely does not work. The step count can vary wildly, and is never accurate. I've tested it numerous times and found it can miss hundreds of steps - a recent walk from my parking garage to my desk at work was over 400 actual steps, but Noom Walk Pedometer told me I took 35.

If you forget to turn it off while you commute (which is easy to do because turning it off is not easy) Noom Walk will add 4000 - 5000 erroneous "steps" to your day based on the bumps and turns in the road.